Glossary — one word, one meaning

Every term this skill uses in a fixed sense, and — the expensive half — the pairs that look alike and are not. A word that appears here means exactly this everywhere in the corpus; a word that does not appear is ordinary English. A term enters when a second file needs it; a term used in one file is that file's business.

Confusable pairs — the test tells them apart

These look alike	…and are not	The test
update · upgrade	update = new bytes arrive; upgrade = the workspace moves onto them	did anything change here?
assign · @-mention	assignment is accountability, and it enqueues a run; a mention of an agent/squad also enqueues a run, of a member or an issue it is free	who is accountable — and does anyone wake?
rerun · retry	a CLI issue rerun starts fresh and resets the attempt counter; a per-row retry in the app resumes the session and reuses the working directory	fresh after corrupt state, resume when it's cheaper
threshold · cap	a threshold asks before an action above it; a cap stops when a total is reached	before each, or at the sum?
grade · model tier	grade is a routing fact in TEAM.md — who gets the work; the tier is what the agent runs on. Grade never enters instructions as an identity	is it about routing, or about compute?
project resource (Multica) · shelf (ours)	Multica's is a thing agents work on — a github_repo or a local_directory bound to a project, and a workspace has none; ours is a place you look something up — a STACKS row, _ops/TOOLING.md, sources/SOURCES.md (FLOWS → a shelf serves every flow)	can an agent be dispatched against it, or do you read it?
Access (Multica) · /multica-ops:mops access	Multica's: who may run this agent (--permission-mode); ours: what a member may direct Mops to do	whose setting is it — the platform's or the methodology's?
conductor · Mops	the conductor plans and accepts work (project lead, in the conveyor); Mops advises and builds the machinery (never assigned a task)	does it hold work?
crew · quick job	crew = a standing team without a conductor — the owner is the PM; a quick job = 1–2 agents, build → review, none of the machinery, then done	does anything stand after the work ships?
consult · research	consult is ephemeral advice, zero standing footprint; /multica-ops:mops research persists cited findings to _ops/research/	does anything land in the repo?
module · skill	a module is an optional capability of the company (design system, brand, theatre); a skill is text an agent loads	toggled for the company, or attached to an agent?
workspace · project	the workspace is the company (agents, skills, limits are shared here); a project is a direction inside it (app, site, marketing)	do agents cross it?
stage · nesting	--stage N is a number on a sub-issue — a barrier ordering siblings; nesting is issue → sub-issue, exactly two levels	a barrier, or a level?
expert · persona	an expert is consulted and cites sources (or is the source, when live); a persona reacts as the audience — direction-only, 🎭-marked, never a hire	does it advise, or simulate?
blocked (board) · stuck (run)	blocked is a status someone set, with a reason; stuck is a failed run (agent_error, limits) that rolled the issue back	a decision, or a failure?
architecture map · product map	_ops/ARCHITECTURE.md is where the implementation lives — a worker's map of the tree; _ops/MAP.md is how the product is walked — the moves and the things, in the product's own words (/multica-ops:mops map)	does it name files, or moves?
verified/recalled/unknown · measured/cited/recalled/judgement	one scale, not two — the three-way labelling is retired. Claims carry measured › cited › recalled › judgement call, plus unknown	—
migration · adoption	a migration moves what a workspace already has onto a newer shape; an adoption is taking up something it never used, which a release can make load-bearing. The first is applied on approval; the second is offered with its price and may be declined for good	is there something to convert, or something to start?
update · upgrade (bytes vs workspace)	new bytes arriving on the machine is not the workspace moving onto them — swapping the skill files is not migrating the company, and the two are indistinguishable until UPGRADES.md says which happened	did anything in the workspace change?

Terms with one home

• the four owner-gated kinds — spend · outward · destructive · shape-of-company; route to the owner whoever asks, and no history softens them → SKILL (permissions).
• evidence rung — measured › cited › recalled › judgement call, + unknown; the rung travels with the claim → SKILL (say what you know).
• request — anything that needs a person's answer: an approval, a question, an escalation, a decision. Carries an age and, where knowable, what the wait costs; a report is where findings go to die → SKILL · PLAYBOOKS (status shape).
• grant — right · grantee · scope · duration: the only way a gate loosens; visible while it lives, expiry evaluated at the gate check → PLAYBOOKS (Gates).
• enforced_by — request · validator · git-host · platform · prose-only; every gate declares its value honestly → PLAYBOOKS (Gates).
• waste slices — outcome · attempt · tier · theatre/system: what was spent on work that produced nothing, derived from the same ledger as the spend → PLAYBOOKS (ledger).
• fingerprint — the per-class hash of workspace state in _ops/.workspace-state.json; what answers "what changed that we didn't change" → PLAYBOOKS (drift).
• conveyor — the pull-based flow: conductor seeds, leaders route, stage barriers sequence, @-mention hands off → SKILL.
• theatre — the personas module at full size: staged personas, bias profiles, mixed live+synthetic rounds, direction-only verdicts → MODULES.